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V 




























THE SIX THUNDERS. 


* 



BY 




Junia, the Ohio Woman. 




WESLEY OGLETHORPE, 


CLEVELAND, OHIO. 


1882. 















- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by Wesley 
Oglethorpe, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washing¬ 
ton, D. C. All rights reserved. 



t 


I 














-^CONTENTS.is- 


I . —Our Fancy Schools. Addressed to President 
White, of Cornell, and others. 

II .— Women and the Churches. Addressed to the 
editor of Zion’s Herald, Boston 

III. —Women and Women. Addressed to Anna 
Dickinson, of Philadelphia. 

I V .— Our Pension Plunderers. Addressed to ruth- 
erford burchard hayes, of Ohio. 

V .— The Fashionable Churches. Addressed to Dr. 
Newman, of New York. 

VI . —Dangerous Divines. Addressed to Chancellor 
Crosby, of New York. 








THE OHIO MAN 


HAVING CEASED TO CARRY THE UNITED STATES 

OF AMERICA 


IN HIS YEST POSKET, 


THE PRINTING': PRESS INTRODUCES TO THE 

GREAT PUBLIC, 


THE OHIO WOMAN, 


WPIO WILL IMMEDIATELY PROCEED TO 


THUNDER ! 



The First Thunder. 


OUR FANCY SCHOOLS* 


To President White, of Cornell, and the Superintendent 
of Education of Cleveland, and to all the Presidents 
of Colleges, Principals of Schools, Superintendents 
of Education, and Teachers in the United States. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I desire to call your attention to the following,, 
which is floating through the columns of the news¬ 
papers of the country: 

The Reward of Education. 

The following advertisement is taken from a New 
York Sunday paper:— 

Wanted —Young man of 17 for collecting; a 
good rapid penman; quick and industrious; must 
furnish bondsman; hours 7 to G; wages, $4. Address, 
giving name, age, references, etc,— 

Young men throughout this noble nation, 

Behold the frnits of education. 

Burn ye the midnight oil in attics ; 

Get posted up in mathematics ; 

Search deep, .young man, geometry; 

Spread yoorself on theology ; 

A linguist be, and Latin speak, 

And earn four hundred cents a week. 




6 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


Take pains and practice every hour, 

With pen and ink; strive with all power 
To write a hand that is exquisite, 

For ledger-heads or cards to visit; 

Work hard ; by industry we thrive; 

Be active, quick, alert, alive, 

But to your betters be most meek, 

And earn four hundred cents a week. 

Work hard each day eleven hours ; 

Let brain and hand exert tbeir powers ; 

Keep your mind from all sia untainted ; 

Be good and holy, like the sainted ; 

Be honest, upright, free from blame ; 

“With references, your age and name 
Then with a bondsman you may seek 
* To earn four hundred cents a week. 

I do. not know that I have ever read anything 
that so aptly illustrates the fruit of your labor, if I 
except the words expressing the regret of Chief Justice 
Waite that the country is “flooded w r itli a horde of 
blatant young men who secure a precarious and not 
altogether creditable subsistence from the petty liti¬ 
gation into which the members of certain classes are 
being perpetually drawn.” Of course the students of 
Cornell have learned the art and mystery of kidnap¬ 
ping and understand as well as any sporting man how 
to sell out a boat race, and the ministers of a city in 
eastern Massachusetts have been asked to preach 
against gambling, it having been ascertained that no 
inconsiderable sums of money have recently changed 
hands in the high school on the results of a race, the 
election, and a game. But I will not add these effects 
to the picture illustrating the fruits of your labor. 
It is complete without them. 





THE SIX THUNDERS. 


7 


I r ou have not succeeded, ladies and gentlemen, in 
performing your oft-repeated promises. When the 
public school system was established you held out a 
most tempting bait to tax payers, in effect that increased 
taxation for schools would be followed by lessened 
taxation for alms-houses, prisons and lunatic asylums. 
What is the truth? I. P. Wickersham, formerly 
superintendent of the schools of Pennsylvania, answers: 
“Education has had a tendency to decrease crime.” 
All the superintendents, and college presidents and 
teachers in the country, echo: “Education decreases 
crime.” 

But do you know what you are talking about, 
ladies and gentlemen ? I very much doubt it, for it is 
a fact that crime is constantly increasing. Our houses 
of correction are multiplying out of all proportion to 
increase of population; and lunatic asylums, state and 
county, cannot keep pace, in number and accommoda¬ 
tion, with the demand made on them by victims of 
shattered brains and morals. The increase of crimes 
—not alone of crimes which send their perpetrators to 
jail, but of crimes which destroy the fountain of life— 
is really alarming. It is very evident that you do not 
know what you are saying, most amiable pedagogues, 
when you assert that your work has a tendency to 
decrease crime, as the facts and the figures are 
against you. 

I admit that Mr. Wickersham furnishes statistics 
in the hope of sustaining his assertion in this particular. 





8 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


But lie goes abroad for them. For instance, he shows 
that of those persons committed to prison in eighteen 
hundred and seventy-two, in the British Isles, forty* 
nine thousand three hundred and forty-five could not 
read or write; seventy-two thousand one hundred and 
twenty-eight could read and write imperfectly; four 
thousand eight hundred and ninety-two could read and 
write with some proficiency; and two hundred and 
sixty-three had received a higher education. And 
these statistics he hastily adopts as proving the 
purifying effects of education. Is the excellent 
old gentleman in his dotage ? Does he forget that the 
proportion of illiterate people in the British Islands in 
eighteen hundred and seventy-two would outnumber 
the other classes? I will be charitable and assume 
that he does. 

But in truth the great Wickersham is the cousin of 
a simpleton, else he never would have put forth such 
evidence. Let us be sensible, and get at the facts, as 
shown by the census. Here we have them: The 
Hew England States, with a population of two million, 
six hundred and sixty-five thousand, eight hundred and 
forty-five native white inhabitants, had only eight thou¬ 
sand, five hundred and forty-three adults who could 
neither read nor write, while the States of Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas, with a 
population of three million, one hundred and eighty- 
one thousand, nine hundred and sixty-nine native white 
inhabitants, had two hundred and sixty-two thousand, 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


9 


eight hundred and two adults who could neither read 
nor write. Thus in the New England States the pro¬ 
portion of illiterate native whites to population was 
one to three hundred and twelve, and in the poor 
Southern States was one to twelve. But when we 
.compare the statistics of crime the proportion is en¬ 
tirely changed. The New England States had two 
thousand four hundred and fifty-nine criminals against 
ONLY four hundred and seventy one criminals in the 
other states named. In other words, there were SIX 
criminals in the states where public education was most 
effectually carried out to ONE in the states where it 
was not. The comparative statistics of suicide and 
lunacy are equally significant. In the New England 
States there was one suicide to every thirteen thousand, 
two hundred and eighty-five of native white population ; 
in the Southern States one to every fifty-six thousand, 
five hundred and eighty four. In the former there was 
one lunatic to every eight hundred ; in the latter, one 
to every one thousand, six hundred and eighty-two. 
Now, what does this prove, ladies and gentlemen ? It 
proves that you are a horde of humbugs—innocently, 
perhaps, but you are humbugs just the same. It proves 
that your panacea for crime is a wretched quack medi- 
I cine, that your absurd system of education is a breeder 
of crime, and that you are obtaining money from the 
people under false pretences—innocently, I believe; 
innocently, I will say, as you are so much engaged at 
teachers’ institutes and such like gatherings, conceiv- 







10 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


ing new and mischievous plans to confuse the little 
•children and warp their brains, that you have not time 
to study the world as it is. 

Though I have little or no sympathy with 
the irrepressible Richard Grant White, I must 
acknowledge that his opinion of the public schools is a 
true one. Instead of benefiting the boys and girls, 
their system of instruction fails to train young people 
for the duties and business of life. It rather makes 
them bumptious and impertinent, and gives them a 
smattering of knowledge, which, in its practical results, 
is worse than no knowledge at all, he says. It is, in 
fact, only sufficient to win for them a situation at “four 
hundred cents a week.” 

Going into particulars, Mr. White says that 
“mistresses of households of long experience prefer 
employing a green-horn who can hardly read and can¬ 
not write, to enduring the bad manners of a girl from 
the public schools.” These school-girls are “ignorant, 
slovenly, heedless, headstrong, self-conceited, disre¬ 
spectful, and altogether unamenable to the discipline 
of a well-ordered household.” He adds, that “of notions 
of duty, of interest in their work, of a desire to learn 
it thoroughly, of docility, of that respectful bearing 
which begets respect, they are as innocent as 
hottentots or yahoos.” The only use they make of their 
education is to read silly stories, from which they ac 
quire a craving for romances of their own that prove 
very troublesome to their mistresses. “No housekeeper 






THE SIX THUNDERS. 


11 


of experience desires to take a public school pupil into 
her service in any capacity,” according to Mr. White. 

As to the public school boy, in the majority of cases, 
he is “less respectful, less docile, less in earnest about 
his work, and, on the whole, inferior in principle, in 
faithfulness, and even in manners, to the boy who has 
been taught merely to read and to write, to fear God, 
and to honor his father and his mother.” So far from 
the schools improving the morals of their pupils, Mr. 
White is of the opinion that a very large proportion of 
our native criminals have been educated at them. The 
proportion is “so large that if it were authentically 
ascertained, the publication of it would produce a 
profound and painful sensation.” 

Ladies and gentlemen, I would to God, for the 
sake of our common country, that the conclusions 
arrived at by Mr. White were false. But, unfortun¬ 
ately, they are not. In a word, the public school 
system is a sham—made so by educators themselves. 
The system that won sympathy on the plea that it 
would provide a plain education for plain people has 
spread out into high schools, academies, colleges and 
universities. And, as it now is, the chief object 
appears to be not to teach human beings how to live 
and get a living, but how to be dependent on some¬ 
body else for a living. You, ladies and gentlemen, 
prove by your course that you do not comprehend 
the first principle of education, which is not to cram 
boys and girls with facts, but to teach them how to 






• 12 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


think; and in the opinion of excellent authorities, it is 
time to put a stop to jour perversion of public education 
from its true purpose. 

The plain people are taking up this question and 
discussing it among themselves, and it is a mere matter 
of time when fancy schools will be abolished and the 
plain schools improved. You may as well face the 
facts now as later, and prepare for the reform. Fancy 
education has well-nigh made the American people a 
nation of hypocrites, if, indeed, it has not already ac¬ 
complished it; and if you are wise, ladies and gentle¬ 
men, you will be the first to lead in the reform. There 
is no disputing the fact. We must have a revival of 
regard for the claims of plain education. It is a sin 
and a shame that the needs of a great majority of 
children who can devote but two or three years to 
common school attendance, should be subordinated to 
the demands of the small, very small, minority for a 
kind and amount of tuition which, if they must have, 
their parents ought to pay for. 

In some particulars, my friends, the present 
educational system is silly. For instance, here is an 
examination question for a ten-year old class of girls 
in a Boston school: “Draw a comparison between the 
writings of Whittier and Longfellow.” And here is 
another illustration: 

Boston Cramming. 

A Boston Mother in Journal of Education. 

I heard last thanksgiving one of our most scholarly 
ministers, Dr. Hale’s church, detail with scorn the ab- 



THE SIX THUNDERS. 


13 


surd lessons his children had in the public schools. 
Would that the whole board of committee and super¬ 
visors could have heard the arraignment! But they 
have never been reached by even the echo of it. Will 
you give them, through the wider call of the press, 
the benefit of my experience ? Here is my little girl’s 
“home lesson” from the grammar school. These are 
lier “points,” to be learned by heart, and in order, 
before drawing a map from memory: 

Degrees. 




Lat. 

Long. 

1. 

Cape Firth. 

.58$ 

5 

2. 

Pentland Firth. 

.58 j 

3 

3. 

Cromarty. 

.57# 

4 

4. 

Kinnaird Head. 

.57# 

2 

5. 

Berwiek-on-T weed. .. 

.58# 

2 

6. 

Boston. 


0 

7. 

London. 

.51# 

0 

8. 

Dover. 

.511-16 

i# 

9. 

Yarmouth. 


i# 

10. 

Land’s End. 

.50 

5 § 

11. 

Bristol. 

.52f 

H 

12. 

St. David’s Head. 

.515-6 

5# 

13. 

Caermoroon. 

.53 1-6 

H 

14. 

Firth of Solway. 

.55 

3 

15. 

Fort Patrick. 

.56 

5 

16. 

Malin Head. 

.55# 

7# 

17. 

Dundalk Bay. 

.51 

6 1-3 

IS. 

Camsore Point. 

.52 1-3 

6 1-3 

19. 

Muzzen’s Head ......... 

.51 1-3 

9# 

20. 

Galway Bay. 

.53 1-6 

9 

21. 

Earn’s Head. 

.54 1-3 

10 

22. 

Dongal Bay. 

.57f 

8 1-16 


E 

E 


That is the list which (with all its blunders) my 
child recited to me last night, ready for school this 
morning. 






























14 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


“Wasting her time,”—does some meehanic say? 
“Nonsense; infernal shame”—does some merchant 
say? Yes; but the worst is not the waste, not the non¬ 
sense—they are bad enough; but the worry and fret 
and distress of the child lest she should miss and not 
be promoted. 

Is it surprising that a little girl died in Springfield, 
Massachusetts, recently, from brain disease, and the 
attending physician was compelled to return as the first 
cause of her death the “graded school system?” Is it sur¬ 
prising that doctors flourish, and little tablets in the 
graveyard that mark the resting places of loved children, 
are increasing so rapidly ? An appropriate inscription 
for these tablets would be this: “Her death was caused 
by the fancy system of education.” 

Fortunately there is a very simple remedy in the 
hands of the plain people. They have the power to 
abolish the fancy public schools, and that they will 
use that power when they discover that these schools 
are giving their children a false and pernicious idea of 
life and filling the country with droves of drones, I 
need not say. When parents learn that they may 
thank the high schools for teaching their children to 
allude to them as “the old man,” and “the old woman” 
—when they learn that the high schools breed pride in 
the hearts of their children—when they learn that the 
high schools cause their children to look down upon 
honest labor—when they learn that to every advertise¬ 
ment for a book-keeper, or a clerk, or a copyist, or 
some similar light employment, “at four hundred cents 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


15 


a week,’ 1 there are scores, and sometimes hundreds of 
responses from their children, and that it is often diffi¬ 
cult to find one mechanic unemployed—in a word* 
when they learn that the fancy schools are the breeders 
of mischief that they really are, they will abolish them. 

The Philadelphia Record has published a number 
of very sensible articles on this question. After 
alluding in one article to the probability that a great 
deal passes under the name of “higher education” now¬ 
adays which is not appropriately included in it, if by 
higher education be meant that which is of higher 
value, and declaring that “the rank of the useful ought 
to be superior to that of the merely ornamental,” the 
Record makes this manly appeal for the primary 
teachers, which I appreciate all the more as a great 
majority of the primary teachers are of my own sex: 

The teachers in the primary schools occupy posi¬ 
tions of far greater importance toward the general 
public than other persons connected with the school 
system, from the state superintendent to the school 
directors. Yet the wages paid to primary teachers are 
not sufficient to secure the best order of talent. There 
is no occupation under the sun where skill is so neces¬ 
sary. The higher grade teachers, who are paid large 
salaries do not begin to have either the labor or the 
responsibility that attaches to the teacher of the 
younger children. Why should not pay be apportioned 
to service ? Why should the great mass of children 
be crowded together in unmanageable droves and left 
at the mercy of overworked and incompetent teachers, 
while a selected few are furnished accommodation and 
instruction proper to a collegiate course? Is it not 
better to begin at the beginning and first see that the 







16 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


primaries are well ordered and efficient ? If we take 
care of the primaries the rest will take care of them¬ 
selves. 

The last sentence should be printed in letters of 
gold, enclosed in a frame of silver, and placed on the 
walls of every school room. 


IF WE TAKE CARE OF THE PRIMARIES THE 
REST WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES. 


But, ladies and gentlemen, owing to the existence 
of high schools—of fancy schools—the primaries are 
neglected, and in no place more than in Cleveland. 
The following, from the Penny Press, of Cleveland, 
is such a beautiful plea for the children of the plain 
people, that I call your attention to it: 

There are several reasons why the primary and 
grammar departments of the public schools ought to 
receive the most careful attention and the most generous 
support; why their teachers should always be chosen 
from among the ablest and the best, even though the 
highest salaries be required to secure them; why they 
should be denied no facility, encouragement, con¬ 
venience or comfort afforded the high schools; why, in 
short, they should be fostered with peculiar care and 
watched over with peculiar vigilance. 

It is in these departments that all the school-days of 
more than nineteen-twentieths of the registered pupils 
of the public schools are passed. Here the mighty 
masses of the people are educated. Here are moulded 
the invincible forces that build civilizations, that make 
and unmake nations; that sway revolutions; that build 













THE SIX THUNDERS. 


17 


up and cast down until the world itself trembles; forces 
before which kings are as chaff and statesmen are as 

stubble. 

The child of a poor man is of necessity placed at 
some employment as soon as he is of sufficient age. 
By the time he reaches 15, sometimes even earlier, his 
school days are over and the battle of his life is begun 
in earnest. If the primary and grammar schools have 
been to him what they ought, he has a well laid 
foundation for subsequent self-improvement in any art 
or calling whatsoever. He reads well and understand- 
ingly, and has learned to appreciate that which is best 
in reading. He writes a fair hand ; not with the gaudy 
flourish and curly-cue affectation which the writing 
master of the high school teaches for $2,000 a year, 
but clearly and sensibly. He is well up in arithmetic, 
having a sufficient knowledge of figures for all busi¬ 
ness purposes. He is bright in geography, and knows 
the English language well enough to speak and write 
it with ordinary correctness. These, with natural 
philosophy, and a possible glance at one or two other 
branches, constitute his scholastic accomplishments. 
He has never been taught that labor is disgraceful, 
nor that to be a gentleman he must be an idler. 

This is all he ever receives from the schools. He 
cannot waste four years in the high school upon Latin, 
Greek, music and drawing. He must be engaged in 
some active and remunerative employment. He goes 
forth with a brave heart and a willing hand, and finds 
his education sufficient for all ordinary emergencies. 
If in any specialty he needs more, he knows how to 
build for himself upon the foundation already laid. 
He becomes a useful, successful and happy citizen, and 
a community is the better for his living in it. 

But suppose all this to be changed. Let him, 
when a child, have only that emasculated apology for 
a school which is now too often given to the pupils of 




18 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


the primary department; an overgrown child for 
a teacher, who gets mad and cuffs him when he is dull, 
and breaks down and cries when he is mischievous, 
and never really succeeds in teaching him anything; a 
flat piece of plank to sit upon, and a stick to lean his 
back against, and no desk at all; put him close to a 
red-hot stove where he will roast, or back in a corner 
where he will freeze; then lay down a code of “rules” 
for him, under which he will he punished if he whispers, 
punished if he turns around, punished if he laughs, 
punished if he forgets anything; here, for four years, 
make him commit to arbitrary memory and repeat like 
a parrot an interminable lot of stuff laid down in the 
books, of the meaning of which he knows little or 
nothing; if he is bright, hold him back even with the 
dunce of his class; then pass him to the grammar 
school, where the improvement upon the physical 
conditions of the primary department are more than 
counterbalanced by additional strictness in the “rules” 
and an increased tension upon the “stufling” and 
“parrot” systems—do all this by him, as is now done in 
the majority of Cleveland’s intensely “systematic” 
graded public schools, and at the end of the eight 
years you will have a boy who hates books, hates 
teachers, and looks upon school houses as only less 
abominable than jails and penitentiaries. Indeed, you 
will have charged his mind with ideas which may push 
him far towards the latter class of institutions. 

The primary and grammar departments of the 
public schools are the great educational nurseries of 
the people. Ample funds are provided for their 
maintenance, sufficient to sustain them at the very 
highest and best standard of usefulness. The millions 
to whom they ought to be the chiefest boon, call for 
their just and impartial treatment at the hands of those 
who administer the law. In the name not merely of 
the multitudes of those who pay taxes in their support 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


19 


and of the pupils who attend them, but as well in behalf 
of future social order and good government, the people 
should protest against any curtailment of their means 
of usefulness, or any discrimination to their detriment. 
No matter what culture the high school may give, in 
power and influence upon the great body of the people, 
it is as nothing compared with the primary and the 
grammar schools. Ultimately and fundamentally, the 
men whom the rich call poor are the rulers. Let 
them be qualified, in the only schools within their 
reach, for the sway they are to bear. Give them 
what they pay for, and all they pay for. To do less 
is robbery, not only of them but of the republic and 
of future generations. 

True, true. The high schools are simply institu¬ 
tions established for the purpose of starving the brains 
of the poor and fattening the brains of the rich. The 
children of the poor have the opportunity of going to 
school but for a brief period, and when they do go 
they should have the best talent in the land to teach 
them. This could be secured if the expense attendant 
on the fancy schools was cut off, and a general reform 
in our public school system inaugurated. 

The primary schools are now mainly in the hands 
of young girls, who have the witchery about them 
to fascinate school boards, and principals, and superin¬ 
tendents. How this came about is very readily 
illustrated : Bill Brad all is a good ward-worker and 
through his exertions Ezekiel Sampson, an ignoramus 
and a blockhead, is elected to the school board. Bill 
Bradall has a daughter who is ambitious to teach school. 
Through the exertions of Ezekiel Sampson, who owes 




20 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


his official existence to Bill Bradall,Miss Maude Brad all’s 
name is placed on the roll of teachers. So it goes. 
Miss Bradall may be one of the most estimable of 
girls, and may have passed the examination with honor. 
But what of that? Examinations are nothing. She 
knows no more about teaching children than a lamb 
would know about attending to a flock of mischievous 
little shepherds. But Bill Bradall must be rewarded 
for his work, so his daughter Maude is appointed. 

The plain people must make a move in this 
matter—the rich and proud never will. Children can¬ 
not teach children successfully. It is preposterous to 
think so. The primaries must be taken out of the hands 
of simpering misses and placed under the control of 
faithful, earnest, sturdy women. Our country has an 
abundance of them, qualified in every minute par¬ 
ticular, and yet they are thrust aside—sometimes 
rudely—for a pretty girl with a political papa. Let 
us remember that disobedience to authority is the 
gravest evil of our times—then let us ask ourselves: 
“ Can we expect our children to obey pretty Maude 
Bradall, a sweet child of seventeen ?” 

Obedience to parents, to kings and magistrates, to 
priests and bishops, used of old time to be enforced 
arbitrarily, without any clear perception of the truth. 
That these also are under the law, which is the great 
standard of authority. Now we have swung around 
to the opposite extreme, that the only authority is in 
the truth and rightness of the law of which every man 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


21 


must judge for himself, and of which even children 
and youth are allowed to debate with a dangerous 
degree of independence. There can be no safe 
society, no stable homes or institutions, no real King¬ 
dom of God, under the education of such half truths. 
Our children must be taught to obey, and if we take 
care of the primary schools, and place women of com¬ 
manding presence over them, obedience will come as a 
natural result. Then, ladies and gentlemen, the ten¬ 
dency of education will be to decrease crime. But His 
not so now. 

I have made my letter much longer than I intended; 
but the subject is so important a one that I make no 
apologies. Trusting that I may hear from the more 
thoughtful of the educators whom I address, I beg to 
remain, ladies and gentlemen, 

Yours respectfully , 

JUNIA, THE OHIO WOMAN. 





The Second Thunder. 


WOMEN AND THE CHURCH. 


To the Editor of ZiorCs Herald. 

Dear Sir: —Your paper, the oldest Methodist pub¬ 
lication in the world, in an article, published about a 
year ago, placed the disparity of the sexes in churches 
at two to one in favor of women, and yon likewise 
made the following startling statement: 

If we were to take the churches right through the 
country, we should probably find that not more than 
one-tenth of their members are men in the prime of 
life. The other nine-tenths are women, men who have 
passed their meridian, and youths who have not reach¬ 
ed their maturity. It is also to be observed that in 
almost every community the majority of the energetic, 
enterprising business men are not avowed and active 
Christians; and if they are identified with the Church 
at all, it is usually only in the most superficial way. 

No one, sir, knowing the eminent position you oc¬ 
cupy, and the high character of the publication you 
conduct, will question your authority to speak as you 
do. 1 should accept your statement as a fact, even 
if my own observation, and the investigation I have 
made, had not taught me its truth. * 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


23 


It is true. The females of a community are the 
main props, if not, indeed, the pillars of the modern 
Church. How startling, then, is the fact that the 
Church is losing its hold even on the women ? Clergy¬ 
men and women have always been close allies, and 
now that this alliance appears to be on the eve of 
breaking, or is even breaking already, what will 
clergymen do for hearers ? 

The late Rev. Dr. Bellows was so much alarmed 
that he asked, a year ago, “ whether the signs do not 
show that church going is so steadily declining that 
it will eventually fall into disuse altogether ?” And 
with the reverend doctor’s woi ds as a starting point, 
the Hew York Sun presented statistics to show that 
fully half a million of the population of the metropolis, 
of an age to attend church, are regularly absent from 
churches on Sunday. The Sun took occasion to add: 

This great number is not chiefly made up of the 
vile and degraded, the vicious and the dissolute, of 
those who make no pretence of obedience to moral 
and religious principle. The greater part of these 
people who keep away from the churches and refuse 
to listen to the sermons of the preachers on Sunday 
are among the reputable, law-abiding, intelligent, in¬ 
dustrious, and sincere inhabitants of the city. If any 
one should take a census to-day of the congregations in 
the churches and of those who remain away from them, 
for virtue and all the more estimable qualities of 
human nature, would not the absent majority compare 
favorably with the minority present in the temples of 
worship ? The Rev. Dr. Bellows answers yes to this 
question. And he has taken pains to proclaim the fact. 




24 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


This, sir, is even more startling than the statement 
in your paper—Zion’s Herald. And what is true of 
the population of Hew York is true of the population 
of other cities. The Bev. Dr. Goodwin gathered sta¬ 
tistics of church attendance in Chicago, and found that 
there, as in Hew York, the majority of the people 
regularly keep away from the churches. The Method¬ 
ists have one-third of their pews vacant every Sun¬ 
day. It is very little better with the Baptists, and the 
Episcopalians, and the Congregationalists have more 
unoccupied sittings than any other denominations. The 
protestant churches of Chicago furnish about one hun¬ 
dred thousand sittings, but only two-thirds of them are 
filled. The same state of things seems to be of general 
prevalence in every part of the country—not alone in 
the metropolitan churches, but in the rural churches 
as well—north, south, east and west. 

But more startling still, sir, is the fact that the bulk 
of the persons who do attend churches, go more in 
obedience to an impulse to gather together and be 
amused than from any pure and sincere motive. To 
give more substance to my argument, I bring forward 
the editor of the Chicago Advance, a religious pub¬ 
lication, as a witness. He said, not long ago, in his 
editorial columns: 

Said a lady to us a while ago, “ As I was ill at home 
last Sunday, my husband asked where he had better go 

that day to church. I told him to hear Dr. C- 

as he would be as well entertained there as any 
where in the city !” She said it soberly, with no 





THE SIX THUNDERS. 


25 


thought of shame for such a view of the act of profess¬ 
edly Christian worship. And it is the bane of our 
congregations—this godless fashion of entering the 
sanctuary as a frequenter of the theatre enters a play¬ 
house, to see how well the preacher can perform. 
Many a church-goer returns to his Sunday dinner self- 
complacent in the idea that he lias done a Christian 
act, when he has acomplished nothing but a gross and 
impious insult to the most High. That He, the Supreme 
and Almighty, is there, ready to receive the adoration 
of the worshiper, goes for nothing. He is of no ac¬ 
count. The momentous question is, whether Bev. Mr. 
A. is in the pulpit, or the famous soprano, Miss. B., is 
in the choir. As we hear such spectators describe the 
show they have enjoyed, we sometimes wait to hear 
God answer with his thunder. And very certain it is 
that no one by means of a solemn farce like that will 
ever rise to any higher temple or join in any loftier 
worship. 

The thunder, sir, will come presently, and its peal 
will startle more ears than those of the editor of the 
Advance. I will not abuse the witness I have brought 
forward to testify that the House of God has been 
converted into a Temple of Pleasure, by hurling at him 
a premature thunder blast, but I will, sir, point out 
an error he has made, and with the same drop of ink 
defend my sex from his aspersions. 

You will observe, sir, that he, as cowardly men 
have done since the days of Adam, places the whole 
blame on the shoulders of the woman. But she does 
not deserve it. It is the Church that is blameworthy. 
It is clergymen who have made the Church blame¬ 
worthy. It is clergymen who have prostrated the 






26 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


Church. It is the conduct of clergymen that keeps 
the millions away from the Church. Mark it well, 
sir !—in their efforts to bring about an alliance between 
the Church and the world, clergymen have brought 
the Church down to the level of the world. Many, 
many thousands of them have ceased to worship God, 
and worship Mammon. They are of the world, world- 
ly—joining in the pleasures of the world and falling 
under the temptations of the world. 

I could here array evidence of the truth of my 
statement, ?nd pile it mountains high; but, sir, this 
letter is not written to gratify the vulgar herd or mere¬ 
ly curious people, who chuckle like monsters when a 
man of the cloth falls from grace: if it were, sir, I 
would allude more particularly to the hundreds of 
homes broken up every year by clerical libertines—of 
the trusting women betrayed—the family altars des¬ 
ecrated—the churches corrupted—the towns scandal¬ 
ized ; but as it is, I will spare you the voluminous evi¬ 
dence that you know I could submit, and make a few 
illustrations serve my purpose. I cannot read a news¬ 
paper these days without being confronted with items 
of which a few specimens from the New York Sun 
are here submitted for your consideration. 

The Rev.- of Wabash, Ind., eloped with 

his daughter-in-law. 

The Rev.-of Armington, Ill., got drunk 

on communion wine, whipped his wife, and broke near¬ 
ly all the parsonage furniture. 









THE SIX THUNDERS. 


27 


The Rev.-of Topeka, has been found guilty 

by the Methodist Conference of using the church 
money dishonestly to promote his candidacy for Con¬ 
gress. 

The Rev.-, a Detroit pastor, got drunk on 

an excursion steamer, was caught kissing a girl, got a 
violent blow from another whom he tried to kiss, and 
was finally arrested. 

The Rev. - stole books from the Public 

Library of Cincinnati and was exposed. This episode 
did not end his ministerial career, nor hinder his get¬ 
ting a Baptist Church at Kittanning, Pa. After a few 
years of successful hypocrisy he has again fallen into 
disgrace, a jury having convicted him on a criminal 
charge relating to a woman in his congregation. 

The Rev.-of Bloomfield, pastor of a Con¬ 

gregational church, clerk of a Congregational min¬ 
isters’ association, and agent of the Congregational 
missionary society, has eloped with* a servant girl, 
taking along all the money he could borrow, and leav¬ 
ing his sick wife and three young children without a 
dollar. 

The Rev.-, a Congregational pastor of Ver¬ 

million, Dakota, got drunk at a public ball, and his 
behavior was so bad that his church had to put him on 
trial. It was then proved that he caroused habitually, 
and he was deposed. 

On Saturday sexagenarian Brother-of 

South Glastonbury was deposed from the ministry 
and excommunicated by the Providence Conference, 
and on Monday handsome Brother-of Somer¬ 

set followed him into ecclesiastical Coventry. In this 
case the chief prosecuting witness was the preacher’s 
wife, and shocking stories she is said to have told of 
him. 

Sanctity and scent were curiously mixed in Boston 
by the Rev.-, the Methodist exliorter now in jail 

















28 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


here on a charge of swindling a religious dupe out ol 
$14,000. This money, with about $6,000 obtained by 
similar means from Boston converts, was used in pro¬ 
moting the Jaques Cologne Company, which finally 
closed in bankruptcy. The hand of Providence con¬ 
trolled the affairs of the enterprise, so it was averred, 
and he would, for example, telegraph to the glass fac¬ 
tory that the Lord had ordered the perfume bottles to 
be clear white instead of tinted green, or to the label 
printer that a revelation from heaven directed the 
changing of a word. Four Boston widows are said to 
have been swindled. 

The Rev.-was deposed from the Congrega¬ 

tional ministry at Roxbury, Mass., on account of injudi¬ 
cious attentions to the women of his congregation. He 
claimed that his punishment was utterly undeserved, 
and he went to St. Louis for the purpose, he said, of 
demonstrating his piety by a life free from the shadow 
of reproach. He joined a Presbyterian church in that 
city, and took a foremost part in its affairs, prepara¬ 
tory to an early return to the pulpit. But he has had 

a second and dreadful set back. Sisters-,-, 

-,-,-, of the same congregation, all say 

that he has engaged himself to marry them, wdiile he 

really has married Miss -, nc*twithstanding the 

existence of a legal wife in Massachusetts. His affairs 
are further complicated by the exposure of a plan to 
elope with a pretty inmate of a girls’ reformatory in¬ 
stitution. 

The downfall of the Rev.-was brought 

about by the fright of Mrs.-when she thought 

she was dying. He undertook, being her pastor, to 
prepare her mind for death, but she knew him to be a 
hypocrite, and declared that his administrations were 
worthless for deathbed purposes. Therefore she turn¬ 
ed to the attending physician for consolation, and 
placed in his hands a package of love letters which 




















THE SIX THUNDERS. 


29 


-, though a married man, had written to her 

She recovered, and the physician turned the letters 
over to the officers of the church. They arraigned the 
pastor privately. He professed penitence, and begged 
them to “do unto him as they would have others do 
unto them if caught in a similar w^ay.” They decided 
to retain him as their minister, but the scandal got out, 
and the congregation forced him to resign. 

Sir, it is from such men as these that I and my sex, 
who are the pillars of the church, are asked to take 
our cue as to morality and decency. The outside 
world, sir, is asked to look up to them as moral ex¬ 
emplars. But it is asking too much of the outside 
w T orld—too much of my sex. Scarcely a day passes— 
never a w T eek passes—hut one or more of the trusted 
clergymen of the land are discovered with the mask 
off, and, accordingly, people of intelligence are losing 
faith in them as a class and refuse to attend church. I 
tell you, sir, clergymen in general are wandering after 
false gods—they are kneeling to Mammon—and the 
plain people refuse to follow them. God bless the 
plain people ! God save the parsons ! 

I appeal to the Episcopal Bishop of Long Island to 
complain no more, as he recently did complain, about 
“ the zeal of Christians growbng faint,” I ask him not 
to repeat his assertion that “ the people wink at the 
paths that lead down to hell.” Let .him rather call 
together the clergymen under his charge and inspire in 
them new ardor, new faith, new hope. I beseech the 
Rev. Edward E. Hale to come out boldly and declare 
before all men precisely what he believes as to the con- 








30 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


dition of the Church to-day, and the cause of the at¬ 
tendance at churches falling off. I ask him to deny, 
if he conscientiously can, that the skepticism and cor¬ 
ruption complained of these days is among the clergy¬ 
men to a greater extent than among the people. God 
bless the people ! God save the parsons ! 

To draw to a conclusion, sir, I charge the clergy¬ 
men of the United States and of the world in general 
with permitting the church to fall down to the level 
of the world instead of attempting to lift the world to 
the exalted height of the church. It is sad. No one 
can feel more sad over this fact than I feel. But I 
am pleased to be able to thank God that they have not 
succeeded. They have not succeeded, sir, because the 
people refuse to follow them—the people refuse to 
kneel to false gods. God bless the people ! God save 
the parsons ! 

I am happy to close this letter, sir, with the re¬ 
mark that there are signs everywhere—at least tome-— 
of an approaching reform in the Church. One of the 
surest signs, sir, is this : The colleges and universities 
of the land, where loose opinions are formed, and where 
brutality is rampant, no longer send out so many ed¬ 
ucated pests to confuse the people. Thank God there 
is a great falling off in the number of clergymen let 
loose by the great educational institutions, and that 
more preachers are springing up from among the peo¬ 
ple—revivalists, evangelists, missionaries, call them 

■ 

what you will. 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


31 


Am I aware, you ask, that the Baptist pastors of 
Chicago have declared themselves against professional 
revivalists, and for the following reasons: 

They cultivate a distracted, one-sided religious 
life. They give undue prominence to noisy and pub¬ 
lic efforts for saving souls. They produce the impres¬ 
sion that religion is largely a matter of feeling. They 
savor too much of the burlesque and buffoonery. They 
lower the dignity of the most solemn subject which 
can engage men’s attention. They put a premium up¬ 
on ignorant and crude presentations of Gospel truth. 
They insult the intelligence of the age by making the 
unlearned and unwise its religious teachers. 

Yes, sir, I am aware of it. I am also aware of 
the fact that these same Baptist ministers have put 
themselves on record as selfish, if not, indeed, heartless 
men. At one of their Monday meetings, sir, they 
had the practical question submitted to them by Mr. 
Sard, a layman, whether they ought not to undertake 
to have the sum of three thousand dollars repaid to 
him. He had paid that amount on a note which he 
endorsed for the Baptist Union, a philanthropic but 
bankrupt organization. All of the pastors thought it 
“ a pity” that he should lose the money, and some 
said that “ the Baptist churches of the city ought to 
reimburse him but a majority voted that the subject 
was “ not religious,” and therefore “ not one to discuss 
in that meeting.” 

Now, sir, is it not just possible that the Baptist 
ministers of Chicago—magnanimous ministers !—see 
the approaching storm, and see the people rallying 






32 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


under the banners of independent evangelists, and fear 
that they will lose their fat salaries if they do not put 
a stumbling block in the way of revivalists ? But I 
shall have to allude to this again. It is not pertinent 
to the subject matter of my letter. I repeat, sir, the 
falling off in the number of educated pests furnished 
by the colleges is the best sign of the dawn of a better 
day for the Church that I can discover on the horizon. 
The stilts are beino; knocked from under atheistic 
materialism, people are learning what monstrous idiots 
skeptics and scoffers are, what hypocrites thousands of 
preachers are, and one by one the bright stars that 
formerly sparkled in the crown of Christianity will be 
reset—reset, sir, by independent evangelists and the 
plain people. 

Finally, sir, I, a weak woman, take upon myself 
the responsibility of appointing, on behalf of my sex, 
a Year of Prayer for the Clergymen of the World, 
beginning on the first day of January, eighteen hun¬ 
dred and eighty three. I appeal to the women of all 
nations and tongues, and to the people under every 
star, to make a chapel in their own hearts, consecrate 
themselves anew, and pray that the Almighty Father, 
the Source and Centre of all minds, the bounteous 
Giver of all good, may roll the world out of the hearts 
of clergymen and inspire in them new zeal, new cour¬ 
age, new heroism, new hope. Pray that He may teach 
them that humble love, and not proud reason, unlocks 
the door of heaven. Pray that He will inspire them to 




THE SIX THUN DEES. 


33 


flee from their sins, and bow no more to Mammon. 
Pray that He will inspire them to be henceforth 
honest in the sacred cause of Christianity. Pray that 
they may tame the proud, rebuke the rich, cheer the 
penitent, and walk among men and make their mission 
felt in the hearts and in the souls of the most humble. 

Craving your pardon for hurling a thunderbolt 
into the sanctum of Zion’s Herald, I am, respected sir, 


Yours very sincerely , 

JUNIA, THE OHIO WOMAN. 




The Third Thunder. 


WOMEN AND WOMEN. 


To Miss Anna Dickinson. 

Dear Anna: —As the ridiculous women to whom 
you dared read a wholesome lecture at Ocean Grove, in 
the summer of eighteen hundred and eighty—I allude 
to the members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union—are undoubtedly weaving a real “ crown of 
thorns,” with the object of forcing you to wear it, I 
desire to renew my acquaintance with you, through 
this medium, in order to be able, if need be, to lift the 
crown they may place on your brow and replace it 
with a wreath of roses. 

Since you first crowed in the cradle—a wee cherub 
all smiles and dimples—you have never been dearer to 
me or more worthy of my admiration than now. Your 
rebuke was so richly merited by the women you ad¬ 
dressed that I am of the opinion that you were in¬ 
spired to rise to your feet at that moment and fire a 
train that will help to explode the false ideas held by 
women of their duty in this age of the world. 

You will remember, Anna, that the good and 
simple creatures fully decided, after a great deal of 





THE SIX THUNDERS. 


35 


0 

silly chatter, that it was a hopeless task for them to at¬ 
tempt to reform the fallen of their own sex—that re¬ 
demption, the science and song of all eternity, is not 
for women—that only those of the opposite sex can 
be saved—in a word, that there was no hope for fallen 
women, but an abundance of hope for fallen men. 
Then you arose, like the bold, brave girl you always 
were, and said in substance : 

I am not a temperance advocate, but I can tell 
you that woman’s best field for reform is among her 
fallen and struggling sisters. You make great exer¬ 
tions to reclaim men who are drunkards and moderate 
drinkers, but you scarcely try to *reach and help and 
reform the thousands of women of various classes, who 
stand in most pitiful need of your help. You fail just 
where you might do the most. 

There is the woman of fashionable society, the 
woman who has nothing to do, who does not need to work 
and w T ho learns to tipple in fashionable company, and so 
becomes a victim—what are you doing to reach her ? 

There is the woman who has too much work to 
do, who is ground to the earth by daily toil and care ; 
your laundress, who perhaps has had to do a day’s 
work for her own family in the morning before she 
comes to do your work, and others like her, who are 
driven to drink and worse deeds by sheer despair— 
what are you doing to help or reclaim these ? 

There is the class of young girls and women who 
are impelled by the joint influences of poverty, starva¬ 
tion w r ages and the alluring temptations of a gay life 
of vice into the paths that lead to ruin—what are you 
trying to do for them ? 

Nothing, Anna, absolutely nothing. It is painful 
to write this; it usually is painful to write the truth. 

I 

_ . ■-— 





36 


THE SIX THUNDEKS. 


But instead of reaching out a hand to save their sisters, 
who are spinning around the whirlpool of death, these 
women confine their attention to the infamous wretches 
who pulled the poor girls down from their height of 
virtue, and plunged them into the stream of iniquity. 

They are always anxious to welcome to church 
and temperance organizations and societies the serpents 
who stung the poor girls to death—for it is death, or 
worse. But for the fallen girls they have no sweet 
words, no sympathy, nothing—nothing but pitying 
contempt. 

They are never tired of carrying ices, and flowers, 
and books, and pictures, to the sleek devils who profess 
to have been saved by their prayers. 

They are never too busy to drive their clergyman 
around to the home of a reformed man to pray with 
him and take his subscription—cash in advance !—for 
a church or temperance paper. 

But mention to them the fact that across the street 
lives a fallen creature of their own sex, and they begin 
to tremble and soon go off into an hysterical fit. 

Here is a fugitave poem, homely but womanly, 
that I may insert to give emphasis to my meaning: 

Stone The Woman. 

Yes, stone the woman—let the man go free ! 

Draw back your skirts, lest they perchance 
May touch her garments as she passes ; 

But to him put forth a willing hand 
To ck sp with his that led her to destruction 
Ard disgrace. Shut up from her the sacred 
Ways of toil, that she may win no more au 










THE SIX THUNDERS. 


37 


Houest meal, but open to him all honorable 
Paths where he may win distinction. 

Give him fair, pressed down measures 
Of life’s sweetest joys. Pass her, 

Oh, maiden, with a pure, proud face, 

If she puts (ut a poor, polluted palm, 

But lay thy hand in his on bridal day, 

And swear to cling to him 

With wifely love and tender reverence ; 

Trust him who led a sister woman 
To a fearful fate. 

Yes, stone the woman—let the man go free ! 

Let one soul suffer for the guilt of two— 

Is the doctrine of a hurried world, 

Too out of breath for holding balances 
Where nice distinc’ions and injustices 
Are calmly weighed. But ah, how will it be 
Oq that strange day of fire and flame, 

When men shall stand before the one 
True Judge ? Shall sex make then 
A difference in sin ? Shall he, 

The searcher of the hidden heart, 

In his eternal and divine decree, 

Condemn the woman and forgive the man ? 

Why is this, Anna ? 1 wish yon would tell me, 

in your own vigorous style. Did it ever occur to you, 

my fearless friend, that if women would do their 

■ 

whole duty there would be no need of their organizing 
•“Women’s Christian Temperance Unions” and“Wom- 
en’s Home Missionary Societies,” and similar institu¬ 
tions ? 

Did it ever occur to you that while they are at the 
meetings of those societies their husbands or sons are 
in a saloon or baiting place, a few doors away, sipping 
delicate wines, and that their daughters are boating, 
or driving, or dancing, or flirting, in company with 
men whose attentions and intentions are worse than 
those of a serpent ? 



38 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


Did it ever occur to you that while these good and 
simple women are making garments for the heathen, 
some sick child in their own neighborhood is pining for 
a flower, or an orange, or a cooling drink ? 

Did it ever occur to you, Anna, to ask those 
women: “Is all well at home ?” Did you ever tell 
them that reform, like charity, should begin at home 
—that they should first practice on their own hearts 
that which they purpose to try on others ? 

You never did—of course not—or I would have 
heard of it. But ’tis not too late. You started well— 
continue the good work. Tell them that if all is well 
at home, they need have little fear of the world. 

What foolish creatures they are, to be sure— 
those women who consider that they have done their 
whole duty when they have sent their girls to a silly 
boarding school, their boys to a sillier academy, and 
have themselves joined a temperance, or missionary, or 
church society! 

In a few years their girls come back silly, affected 
creatures; their boys return home,thoroughly spoiled for 
any good practical work; their society is in debt, or 
crippled for want of funds; and the world instead of 
being any better is much worse for the work they think 
they have done. 

It is much worse because they have sent into it, 
to lead it still further astray, perhaps one cheap law¬ 
yer, one cat doctor, one weak preacher, one brawling 



THE SIX THUNDERS. 


39 


polititian, one or two fashionable wives, and a simper¬ 
ing prude or two. 

How much better it would be if they would have 

•/ 

their children educated under their own eye, and give 
the world manly men and womanly women ! 

Anna, some day when you are in the humor, 
mount the rostrum and tell the mothers of America, 
in words that will go right to their hearts, that their 
sisters are falling every day—falling by the hands of the 
men whom they welcome to their fireside—falling by 
the hands of their wicked husbands and sons—falling 
because tlmy are neglected by them! Shame them out 
of their absurd notion that their duty is to save men 
and allow their own sex to go whirling into perdition. 
The work of saving the fallen of their sex is their 
work—only theirs. It is a work beyond the reach of 
men. 

You and I will have to get our heads together 
some day and write a book that will awaken the 
mothers of America to their duty. They do not seem 
to know it now. 

But I must not tire you with a long letter. I will 
accordingly close with the hope that I may hear from 
you at an early day, through one medium or another, 
and with the wish that you may have abundant success 
in whatever work you may undertake, when you shall 
have u strutted your brief hour on the stage.” I am, 
esteemed friend, 

Yours sincerely , 

JUNIA, THE OHIO WOMAN. 



The Fourth Thunder. 


OUR PENSION PLUNDERERS. 


To rutherford Imrchard hayes. 


Sir and Neighbor: —Private Dalzell, Senator In¬ 
galls, and yourself, during the time that rou were the 
incumbent of the presidential chair, conceived, nursed, 



temptible measure of modern times. I allude to the 
arrears of pension act. Private Dalzell was its father, 
Senator Ingalls its nurse, and you its patron. At 
least, the man Dalzell claims the thing as his own,and 
I do not dispute him. Senator Ingalls, and yourself, 
however, are more responsible in the matter than Dal¬ 
zell, as Ingalls adopted the brat and introduced it to 
congressmen, and your signature forced the American 
people likewise to adopt it and pay all its preposterous 
demands. 

This act, sir, which yon signed with full knowl¬ 
edge that it would make a tremenduous drain upon the 
treasury, and which you might have stopped with a 
veto if you had not thought a veto would hurt the 
party, is going to cost the tax-payers of this country, if 
it is not repealed, over half a billion of dollars ; “and,” 














THE SIX THUNDERS. 


41 


say the demagogues, “of course, as we have begun this 
business, we must go through with it.” 

Not necessarily. Indeed, if we “go through with 
it” we are simply a very stupid people. Let the thing 
be repealed—disown the brat. I confess, sir, that the 
government owes support to its disabled soldiers, and 
to the widows and children of soldiers killed in service. 
No duty is plainer or more imperative. But let it be 
remembered that nearly sixteen years have passed since 
the war of the rebellion ended; that children in their 
cradles when Lincoln first called for volunteers have 
become citizens; that children that were learning to 
write when Lee surrendered are earning support for 
families of their own ; that the number of names now 
borne on the pension rolls exceeds a quarter of a million; 
and, finally, that the contemptible blatherskites who 
are always talking about “the dear soldiers,” are en¬ 
deavoring to bleed the people still further. Now they 
want every soldier to be paid one dollar for each day 
he was confined in a rebel prison, which would amount 
in the aggregate to over fifty millions of dollars; and 
Bliss, of New York, goes so far as to demand extra 
pensions for prisoners—another draft of three hundred 
millions of dollars or thereabouts. 

Sir, this thing muc-t stop, and the soldiers them¬ 
selves must stop it. There is already a suspicion in 
the minds of the people that the boasted patroitism of 
even many deserving pensioners is the merest bom¬ 
bast, and everyone knows that the men who fought 




42 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


the bravest and received the severest wounds scorn to 
take a pension. Look on this picture, sir, which was 
sent over the telegraph wires from Philadelphia, Penn¬ 
sylvania, a very short time ago : 

Major General Rial Niles was found dying from 
starvation in this city to-day, and his wife, worn out 
with constant watching and want of food, was by his 
side in an exhausted condition. Niles served with the 
Ninth and Tenth Indiana corps during the war and 
was wounded at Laurel Hill, at Winchester, at Pitts¬ 
burg Landing and at Chicamauga. He lost a fortune 
during the Chicago fire and afterwards followed the 
ministry, until his health failed in this city last Novem¬ 
ber, while on a visit. He was found by members of 
the Grand Army of the Republic, weak from an old 
wound in the lung, and famished with hunger, in a 
squalid room in West Philadelphia, attended by his 
wife. 

Now, sir, look on other pictures that I will display 
to you. See that bloated loafer crossing the street 
yonder. He is a pensioner. See that sleek saloon¬ 
keeper with his glittering bar—“military headquarters.” 
He started that saloon with money of which he 
defrauded the government, and a great part of the 
money paid by the government to deserving pension¬ 
ers finds its way into his pockets. See that flash fel¬ 
low there, with a false limp and a cane. He is as 
sound as an oak, and never saw a battlefield ! Never¬ 
theless, he has a claim agent at work, and will presently 
be the recipient of a pension—arrearages and all. See 
that handsome cyprian, smiling from her window upon 
the congressman who put her claim through, and 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


43 


secured a pension for her, although she was never mar¬ 
ried. And see litre sir : 

A remarkable pension case has just come before 
the adjutant general. It is that of a soldier’s widow, 
who applies for a pension on account of her husband, 
who died March 13, 1862 (note the date), and whose 
three fatherless children, as set forth in her affidavit, 
were born as follows : April 11,1867 ; September 10, 
1861), and March 8, 1878. Some months ago a case 
was noted where a woman applied for a pension, in 
which case, according to the date furnished, her child 
was born some months before her marriage, which was 
rather a stunner to the adjutant general, but when 
children come dropping in upon a poor lone widow, six, 
seven or sixteen years after the death of her husband, 
it is getting heartrending, and if the present pension 
laws no not afford relief they should be promptly 
amended to meet the emergency. 

Sir, the arrears of pension act must be repealed 
and every item of pension legislation must be over¬ 
hauled. The whole system is an infamous swindle, 
and our law-makers must look the matter squarely in 
the face and hit it between the eyes. Honest pension¬ 
ers have no sympathy with the demagogues who are 
making fresh raids on the treasury. „ To suspect them 
of that would be a gross and inexcusable insult. They 
owe it to themselves, therefore, and will only be doing 
themselves justice by letting it be known in some 
authoritive fashion that they do not approve or 
defend a system which gives knavish pretenders an 
equal standing with themselves, and that they have no 
sympathy with the demagogues who are trying to lead 





44 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


up to the treasury a lot of skalawags aud camp-follow¬ 
ers who have no just and honest claims. 

The whole pension system is an incentive to fraud 
and perjury, a breeder of vice and pauperism, and a 
burden upon the workingmen of this land that they 
should throw off. The road to a fortune in the pension 
business has become as easy as profits are to the pro¬ 
prietor of a faro-bank. I do not wish to be understood 
as opposed to pensions being extended to any man dis¬ 
abled in defending his country, or to the widows and 
orphans of soldiers. But I do protest against the 
granting of pensions to men who are able-bodied, who 
never incurred any greater risk than is incurred by 
the driver of a sutler’s wagon or by the clerk of a hos¬ 
pital steward, and who have no scars, and never had 
any pain worse than the toothache, or to that class of 
“officer’s widows,” who are such great friends of certain 
congressmen. 

You, sir, cannot undo the infamous work you 
have done. You cannot wipe out the black record you 
have made. But the soldiers of the land, if they have 
any pluck and honesty about them, will say to Senator 
Ingalls and men of his kidney: “See here, sir; you 
must understand that we are not for sale. You and 
men of your caliber, have traded on the war long 
enough. We scorn you! We spurn you!” If the 
soldiers do not do this—if they do not move in this 
matter—if they do not demand the repeal of the 
arrears of pension act, knowing it to be a fraud, then, 









THE SIX THUNDERS. 


45 


sir, they must be set down in the same category as 
Senator Ingalls—that of “Cheap and Inglorious Pa¬ 
triots—Two for a Penny—Trimmings Thrown in.” 

By-tlie-way, neighbor, I understand that Mr. In¬ 
galls knew that Dalzell’s brat was illegitimate when 
he adopted it. The New York World says upon this 
point: 

The bill has laid enormous burdens upon tax¬ 
payers, and Senator Ingalls fails to comprehend the 
main point made against him as the author of this 
stupendous swindle. The Congressional Record shows 
that the bill was introduced and passed under false 
pretenses. Some bold editors in Senator Ingalls’ 
own State declare that these false pretenses were 
knowingly put forward. Senator Ingalls had better 
devote himself to explaining his original speeches and 
representations as these stand printed in the Congres¬ 
sional Globe. If a man had made similar representa¬ 
tions in negotiating a purchase of land or of merchan¬ 
dise and had obtained in virtue of them one-hundred- 
thousandth part of the sum which has been taken from 
the Treasury under Senator Ingalls’ bill, he could have 
been convicted under the statutes of every State in the 
Union of feloniously obtaining objects of value by 
false pretenses. 

Soldiers and pensioners, sir, probably do not real¬ 
ize what a colossal swindle the existing pension system 
is. But the time is coming when they will know it, 
and when they must take one side or the other on the 
question, and they may as well inform themselves so as 
to be able to act intelligently. They must array them¬ 
selves either on the side of the honest people, whose 




46 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


hard-earned money keeps many of them, who never 
smelled powder, in a position of luxurious laziness, or 
on the side of Ingalls, and demagogues, and such crea¬ 
tures. They have posed before the people as pets long- 
enough ! The country is tired of the eternal prattle 
about “ the soldier vote,” and if soldiers do not 
muzzle men like Ingalls, and assert their manhood, 
they will see a party rise in the country that will con¬ 
sider “the soldier vote” at its true worth—nothing, or 
a petty million out of many millions. All in all, those 
among the military element who stand by and see the 
people bled by swindlers parading in a coat of blue, 
are mere ginger-bread patriots. It is their duty to 
agitate against such infamous frauds. Will they do it f 

I cannot close, sir, without advising you of the 
fact that the New York Commercial Advertiser ex¬ 
presses the opinion that “ if only one half the shams 
were removed from the pension rolls and only those 
retained who were seriously incapacitated from earning 
their bread, the pension deficiency, instead of $20,000,- 
000, would not foot up $2,000, if that.” The Adver¬ 
tiser is nearer the truth than most men will credit. 
The whole pension business must be reconsidered,or we 
must write ourselves down “ a nation of simpletons, 
with pension swindlers as our keepers.” 

Believing it to be the duty of every honest man 
and woman in the country to thunder against the ex¬ 
isting pension system until it is reconsidered and recon- 





THE SIX THUNDERS. 


47 


structed, and believing further that a political party 
which would make an issue of this cpiestion, regardless 
of the u soldier vote,” would be the favorite party of 
the people, who earn the money to foot the bills of 
their swindling servants at Washington, I am, sir and 
neighbor, 

Yours Respectfully , 

JIINIA, THE OHIO WOMAN. 

P. S.—If you wish to borrow half a dollar, to buy 
tacks with which to fasten to the wall the elaborate 
and expensive picture, the sentimental temperance 
woman of Washington, presented to your estimable 
wife—instead of giving the money to the worthy poor 
—address me, care of my publisher. If you have no 
postage stamps, probably the postmaster at Fremont 
will trust you for a postal card. 


JUNIA. 




The Fifth Thunder. 


THE FASHIONABLE CHURCH. 


To Dr. Newman. 

Reverend and Dear Sir: —Perched on the pinnacle 
of human greatness, in the full meridian of earthly glory, 
nearer heaven than the common mortal, and enjoying 
a foretaste of paradise, you would not condescend to 
bend your ear and listen to me, as you ivould listen in 
the dear old days when you were a plain Methodist. I 
would be rudely thrust from your exalted presence at 
the first murmuring peal; accordingly I take this 
method of approaching you. 

I will not invade your study without warning, sir, 
and sound a note that might seem to you a premature 
explosion of one of the six thunders. You need not 
barricade your doors, nor take refuge in your cellar. 
I will not summarily end your 

* * * feast of nectar’d sweets, 

Where no crude surfeit reigrs. 

Enjoy your feast while you may, and bid your waiting 
maid fetch you another ice—one highly-flavored, sir, as 






THE SIX THUNDERS. 




i- 

my letter will not smell sweet in your nostrils, and the- 

scenes I shall reveal to you will be anything but 
pleasant. 

* 

You, sir, are the presiding genius of a beauti¬ 
ful temple, in which a fine and fashionable audience 
assembles weekly to listen to the result of your 
researches into theology ; for doling out to the favorites 
of fortune what is commonly called the bread of life' 
you receive annually loaves and fishes enough to sup¬ 
ply fifty families for a year with the necessaries for ex¬ 
istence ; you have a palatial home, superbly furnished,- 
and are surrounded with all the luxuries that the most 
fastidious king could desire ; in a word, sir, you are 
rich, and great, and proud, while our Savior had “no 
place to lay his head.” Nevertheless you must read 
my recollections of a visit to the metropolis. 

When Sunday came, I left my hotel, with a light 
and happy heart, and walked through the streets for 
an hour or two, and finally with bells clanging like 
mighty monsters, entered a palace of pleasure, which, 
I discovered was only opened on Sunday. It was on 
Diamond avenue, a few steps below Dollar street, and 
was certainly one of the most attractive places of 
pleasure in the city. The exterior was grand; but the 
interior—the holy of holies—was beautiful beyond 
description, sumptuously furnished and gorgeously 
decorated. The ceiling was ornamented with frescoes, 
the lustres were of Bohemian crystal, while rich gild¬ 
ing, glittering chandeliers and gay columns met the eye 





50 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


at every turn; and all the coquettish allurements of 
the Pompadour style were displayed. 

Immediately after I passed the portals, I was ush¬ 
ered through an inner door by a ^enie of the temple, 
to find the place glittering with diamonds, from par¬ 
quet to paradise, and to hear the organ rolling and 
pealing terrifically. I was a little early and had an 
opportunity to witness the coming of the devotees. 
Come, doctor, and sit with me in the box while I call 
up the spectacle I witnessed and present it to your 
eyes as if it were just passing. See! 

Beauty and manliness are stepping down the 
carpeted avenues ; radiant young ladies in perfectly be¬ 
witching dresses and wonderful head-gear, like pink 
and green divinities, trip to their luxurious places ; 
noble specimens of manhood, in broadcloth, laven¬ 
der neckties, and the most delicate kids, propel them¬ 
selves to appropriate positions. 

Ah ! now comes one of the goddesses of the 
divine establishment. She is a favored heiress, beauti¬ 
ful and graceful. See how gracefully she sinks on the 
soft cushions, the bewitching attitudes she strikes as 
she draws off her dainty kid, that the costly gems on 
her hands may be seen and admired—the coquetry she 
displays in taking out her cob web kerchief, with its 
cloud of delicious *perfume ! A rich scene, is it not ? 

Her hands are ablaze with beautiful jewels ; round 
her neck they shine ; on her forehead they glitter; eacli 














THE SIX THUNDERS. 51 

fair wrist is encircled with a golden zone, and a 
diamond dew-drop, luminous almost as a star, is pen¬ 
dent from each shell-like ear, glowing like dancing 
sunbeams. Yet the scene is incomplete: Place a 
robe of azure about her beautifully rounded bust, give 
her a naked Bacchus to toy with, a goblet of delicious 
wine to sip, summon a troop of satires to attend her, 
and we have the Goddess of Pleasure. 

But stay! She has thrown off her cloud-like 
wrapper, and other bewildering things catch the eye. 
A chain, like a golden serpent, reaches from neck to 
waist, and is there lost in the glitter of the jewelled 
time-piece that peeps from behind the captivating 
belt. And still another jewel we see—a precious 
emblem upon her breast, an elegant trinket, with a 
diamond of enormous value peeping from it like an 
eye—a cross, the heaviest she ever bore. 

Now, the place is pretty well tilled ; and we ob¬ 
serve flashy ladies, elegantly attired men, and dashing 
devotees, lounging on downy cushions. At tirst glance 
one can see that they are of the highest aristocracy— 
the satin-masked upper crust. The gentlemen form 
a part of the tribe of commissioners of the customs, 
shrewd financiers, farmers of the' public’ revenues, 
Wall street gods, Broadway merchants, railroad kings, 
hotel princes, wine-bibbers and money-grabbers gener¬ 
ally —the ladies being the creatures who assist them 
to maintain the dignity of their ennobling position— 
O, dear me ! 





52 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


You will look in vain for poverty-stricken people, 
for they are prudently excluded from this gay estab¬ 
lishment. Only known persons, recommendable on 
the score either of their birth or fortune, are received. 
Thanks to these wise precautions, the ton flock hither, 
sure of not meeting any person inferior to themselves, 
and they can enjoy the feverish condition of starting 
on a journey to Heaven, unobserved by the ignorant 
and the unwashed. 

Diamonds flash, gold glitters, eyes sparkle, hearts 
thrill, pulses go rub-a-dub-dub, white arms curve grace¬ 
fully, golden crosses gleam, brazen serpents wriggle 
and twist as some gaily decorated arm is wafted, well- | 
rounded busts rise and fall gently, gaiter boots squeak, 
immaculate shirt bosoms rattles, chains jingle and the 
organ rolls, and the opera singers screech and howl, 
and the man who supplies the wind whistles to him¬ 
self and they are all in a fair way for paradise. 

Perhaps, doctor, I may as well inform you that you 
have just witnessed, through my poor eyes, a modern 
city church, where select performances are given every 
Sunday by high salaried opera singers and brilliant 
theological actors. You have an abundance of such 
places in New York, and you yourself have become 
the high priest of a church that is certain to become 
just such an establishment as many of the devotees of 
the palace I have described are flocking around you. 
You have a great passion for glitter and glory, and 


















THE SIX THUNDERS. 


53 


your keeper, and your keeper’s keeper—Grant and the 
millionaires—seem disposed to give you all you want 
of it. 

By the way, parson, beware of the men around you 
now. As the world goes, they are grand and glorious 
men ; but when the final roll is called they must stand 
on an equality with other men. Remember the words 
of Rowe: 

Religion’s lustre is, by native innocence, 

Divinely pure, and simple from all arts ; 

You daub and dress her like a common mistress, 

The harlot of your fancies ; and by adding 

False beauties, which she wants not, make the world 

Suspect her angel’s face is foul beneath, 

And will not bear all lights. 

Remember, and beware ! The religion you must 
preach to please Deacon Grant and his friends and 
lackeys is a base counterfeit of the true Christian reli¬ 
gion. Let it be known once for all that no man can 
be a Christian who does not go among the poor and 
the sick, and minister to their wants, which you once 
admitted in Philade^hia, as I shall presently show. 
Theology is not Christianity; fine sermons are not 
Christianity; Miss Chiseldick’s exquisite solos are not 
Christianity; in point of fact, the grand churches of 
your city are mere temples of amusement. Chris¬ 
tianity is but another name for love. Christianity is 
universal love. Can you practise that love, with 
Grant, Sage, Knapp, Vanderpool, Ranney, and men of 
their kind as your hearers ? No !—let the thunders 
echo—No! 



54 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


t r i * ■ 

Once, in Philadelphia, I think, at an anniversary 
of the Sunday Breakfast Association, you said “ The 
churches of this day offer no inducement for outcasts 
such as those with which this organization has to deal. 
What would any of our congregations think,” you 
asked, “ if one of those dirty, degraded mortals should 
come seeking a breakfast for his hungry soul into 
some of our elegant churches ? How would the minis¬ 
ter feel ? These men and women—homeless, sinning,, 
forsaken—who seek their Sunday breakfast are out- 

• f ** i * Itpii ilnitlj I 

casts not only of societ}^ generally, bat more especially 
of our social aristocracy. The doors of our churches 
are not open to the poor; you are not wanted, 
that is all. I am trying to change this in my 
own church, but it’s up-hill work. I have no¬ 
ticed, too, that Christ always fed His hearers before 
He began to preach. There are so many now who 
will give anything, do anything, to save men’s souls, 
but are willing to let the same men’s bodies go to the 
devil. They apparently would like the souls of this 
sort of people without their bodies. This association 
has struck the keynote. If the Saviour were to re¬ 
turn to earth I feel sure He would belong to this asso¬ 
ciation and pass many churches by:—perhaps, but I 
hope not, my own.” 

Yes, parson, He would pass your own church by. 
Think of a meek and lowly man like Jesus entering- 
the palace I have described in this letter. Your 
church is not as gorgeous yet as the one I have de- 1 



THE SIX THUNDERS. 


55 


fecribecl; but it will be by and by. Deacon Grant will 
say : “ Boys, I don’t exactly know what a plaque is , r 
but it is something for decoration. Let’s get some 
plaques for this church,” or “ Boys, let’s put the par¬ 
son’s salary up to twenty-five thousand dollars. Egad ! 
he must have as much as Beecher and Hall and DeemS 
and those fellows.” Do not talk any more about trying 
to induce the poor to come to your church, parson : 
all your surroundings are repulsive to the man in a 
plain coat. 

I am surprised, doctor, that one tear was shed 
when you and Grant defected from the Methodist 
church, and I am sorry that one word of reproach was 
cast upon you—sorry that the Pittsburg Christian 
Advocate gave you the following parting kick: 

When a man, whose mother has nursed him ten¬ 
derly, comes to the conclusion to disown her because 
there are some things she sees fit to withhold from him, 
the poignancy of her grief will be somewhat dulled by 
the consideration of the ingratitude he manifests. 

This was a grave error on the part of the Advocate. 
It should have assisted your departure with a kick of 
another kind. When a so-called minister of God so 
far forgets himself as to idolize a man of the character 
of Grant, and to come at his beck and call, as you 
have done these many years, his place is not in the 
Methodist church. Consequently the Methodists are 
to be congratulated on your defection; but the Con- 
gregationalists are not. 










56 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


They tell me, doctor, that you have made a tre¬ 
mendous hit, and all the great guns of the metropolis 
are flocking under your banner. I shall, therefore, 
have to look in upon you again. Meantime let me ask 
you: would the great guns flock under the banner of 
our Saviour if he came on earth to-day ? 

Yours , in sadness , 

JUNIA, THE OHIO WOMAN. 




The Sixth Thunder. 


DANCEROUS DIVINES. 


To Chancellor Crosby : 

Dear Doctor :—From a close study of you as a 
man and an ecclesiast, I have arrived at the conclusion 
that your thinking apparatus is out of order, and that 
you should lay up for repairs. When a man who holds 
such a distinguished position as you do—personally, 
morally, socially, aud ecclesiastically—makes such a 
spectacle of himself as you have made of yourself the 
past year or two, there is something wrong. 

Your first eccentricity —I may have occasion to 
characterize it differently before I close this letter— 
was to put a new handle to the axe with which rum- 
sellers are cutting down the pillars of the temple of 
temperance; your second eccentricity was your absurd 
proposition that the President of the United States 
should issue a proclamation abolishing Mormonism, 
and send General Sheridan with fifteen or twenty 
thousand soldiers to enforce it—ha, ha! 

Poor, dear, ridiculous doctor! I will not expose 
your simplicity in respect to your last eccentricity ; it 





58 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


is too dreadfully silly; but in relation to the former 
eccentricity—the fact of your becoming a cooper, or a 
carpenter, and putting a new handle to the axe of the 
rumseller—I ^ propose to take upfhe gauntlet. Such 
an eccentricity was monstrous! infamous ! inexcusable ! 
It gave the rumsellers a new weapon and injured the 
cause of temperance more than any other one thing 
during the century. It gave to the opponents of tem¬ 
perance a new doctrine—a most dangerous doctrine! 
ay, a most damnable doctrine! no less, doctor, than 

,■ • . ; , ; * n 

that “ moderate drinking; does not lead to drunken- 
ness.” Roll together all the good you have done in 
the past, add to it all the good you can do in the future, 
and you could not otfset the evil done by the procla¬ 
mation of this doctrine. . 

{ i • ? . F r", t ' . * 5 — ~ . • • . * / • ' /\" r 

• P* + * 1 ' ' r i • ' ‘.II * .’Hi 

If you were not crammed so full of theology, 
and if fewer isms were floating around in your massive 
brain, and if the place of the one and the others was 
relinquished in favor of good and sound common sense, 
you never would have put forth so untenable a doc¬ 
trine. Furthermore, if you had not a greater craving 
for the applause of tipplers than a man in your position 
should have, you never would have fastened the handle 
into the axe you had already provided by closing a 
letter to a Brooklyn preacher with the following dec¬ 
laration : 

. ’U „ , ! f! , ■ • 11 I . • ' 'T 

J 

You think that my declaration “ moderate drink¬ 
ing leads to drunkenness is an atrocious dogma ” is ex¬ 
traordinary, dangerous, etc. It is atrocious, for it 



THR SIX THUNDERS. 



implies that every moderate drinker is on the road to ' 
drunkenness. It implies that our Lord traveled thatj 
road. Don’t wiggle out of that with the two-wino • 
theory. That device is threadbare. If you mean by | 
moderate drinking the immoderate drinking of the 
liquor saloon, or the jovial party, then you are right. 
Most teetotalers have no idea of moderate drinking 
other than tippling. The phrase immediately suggests 
to them two fools sipping liquor on a treat. But I use ' 
moderate drinking for just such drinking as our Lord 
practised. To say that leads to drunkenness is “ atro- 
cious.” 

, * ., * •' . f 

Howard Crosby—-excuse me for not putting the 
trimmings to your name—the letter from which I 

'» * ■’ . > • ,{ , . * . r - , 

quote above is a weak attempt to bolster up the infa- 

i ■ i 

mous doctrine you proclaimed in the first place. But 

f • ( j • • » » : • * . , < , • • . / : ‘ ,'*.»■ ' < ; . • • •' 

such a doctrine cannot be bolstered up. There is noth¬ 
ing surer—no fact more positive—no truth more con- 
clusively demonstrated—than that moderate drinking 
leads to drunkenness. You would not pretend to say 
that the first, or the second, or the third glass makes a 
drunkard. Yet you would not deny that the first, orb 
the second glass creates a craving for a third, a fourth-,b 
and a fifth. And you dare not deny that drunkenness 
is the result of satisfying this craving. All moderate 
drinkers do not become drunkards; but all drunkards 
were once moderate drinkers. 

Another dangerous divine in your city, sir, is Rev¬ 
erend Doctor Potter, the pastor of Grace Church. 
Being interviewed on the temperance question, he said * 
“Corn shall make the young man cheerful, and new 




60 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


wine the maids. I have no more doubt that Christ 
drank fermented wine of an exhilarating quality than I 
have of His conforming to any other of the Jewish 
habits.” 

There are many other dangerous divines in your 
city, and other cities; but I shall not allude to them 
in this letter. I say dangerous, and mean it. I say 
yourself and Doctor Potter work more mischief in put¬ 
ting forth such doctrines than a legion of devils could 
work in a decade. Men listen to you and believe in 
you ; few of them listen to or believe in devils. Men 
quote you and emulate your example; few of them 
quote and emulate the example of devils. There¬ 
fore, until you revise your doctrine, and until Doctor 
Potter revises his doctrine, you should both wear a 
card labelled: “ DANGEROUS.” 

You must not think, Chancellor Crosby, that I 
belong to a praying band of temperance fanatics, as I 
denounce their methods as earnestly as I denounce the 
doctrine you proclaim. Nor must you think that I 
believe the enthusiastic temperance women of the capi¬ 
tal city of the republic were advancing the cause of 
temperance by ordering an expensive engraving of the 
estimable wife of rutherford burchard hayes. I am 
neither a fanatic nor a sentimentalist. I am simply 
a woman who has the courage to denounce you as 
the author of a most dangerous, a most damnable 
doctrine. 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


61 


The Topeka Capitol , a western paper, gives voice 
to my views on this subject, in the following: 

We have no patience with any minister who 
preaches a whisky gospel or gives aid and comfort of 
any kind to the devilish rum power. Ministers, who 
have to explain themselves on the whisky question 
need the services of the praying band, and need them 
bad. We have no biblical discussion to make about 
the subject. The idea of men occupying the position 
of moral teachers offering a glass of fermented wine 
to anybody for any purpose, merits so far as we see it, 
the severest condemnation, and we have no apologies 
to offer for thinking so. 

You, sir, and Doctor Potter, should pray with 
each other for new light on the question. If, as has 
been declared by a thousand pens, a certain element of 
the republican party was morally guilty for the terri¬ 
ble tragedy that thrilled the world in eighteen hundred 
and eighty-one, then sir, you are morally guilty of a fatal 
railway disaster that happened only a short time ago. 
You will remember that before the coroner’s jury 
charged with examination into the causes of the rail¬ 
road murder at Spuyten Duyvil, the conductor of the 
train in the course of his evidence was asked : 

“ Did you find out who tampered with the air¬ 
brakes ?” 

“ That was impossible. The party all through the 
car was carousing, singing, and drinking.” 

Then growing red in the face and slapping, with 
great force, the table at which the corone” sat, gaz¬ 
ing vacantly at the jury, the witness excitedly con¬ 
tinued : 




62 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


“ I tell you, sir, that the cause of the accident 

WAS RUM.” 

The corner jumped back when he heard something 
strike the table, and then, looking at the witness, he 
said in fatherly tones : 

Yell, don’t get oxcitet.” 

“ Did you make every effort to suppress the im¬ 
proper conduct of those on board?” inquired a jury¬ 
man. 

“ I did not. The passengers were gentlemen by 
position in society, and I thought I had no right to 
interfere. It is an every day occurrence, especially 
Fridays, when the legislature adjourns. We had ex¬ 
coroners, ex-aldermen, senators, assemblymen, and 
politicians of all kinds. It was a general carousal. I 
have no doubt that some of you gentlemen have wit¬ 
nessed the scene on Fridays. Men had bottles which 
they passed around from one to another.” 

These men, sir, are what the world calls “ moder¬ 
ate drinkers,” and, when the record of your life is made 
up, possibly you will read, that one or more of them 
became moderate drinkers because “ Howard Crosby 
said moderate drinking did not lead to drunkenness,” 
and because “ Doctor Potter expressed his belief that 
our Saviour was a moderate drinker.” 

Here is another illustration of the result of mod¬ 
erate drinking. Ex-Senator Merrimon, of North Caro- 
lina, recently said, at a meeting in Reidsville : 

I have never meddled with liquor. I have never 
drank it, have hardly kept it as medicine in my family, 
and yet it has meddled with me, has made my boy a 
wandering vagabond, has broken my wife’s heart; yes, 





THE SIX THUNDERS. 


63 


when I was asleep, thinking him at home in the house, 
he was being made a drunkard in the bar-rooms of 
Raleigh. 

I shall not illustrate this letter further ; but will 
present to you, in conclusion, the words spoken by an 
eloquent infidel in relation to the infamous traffic you 
encourage when you encourage moderate drinking. 
The following is from the lips of Robert G. Ingersoll: 

“I am aware that there is a prejudice against any 
man engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. I believe 
that from the time it issues from the coiled and 
poisonous worm in the distillery until it empties into 
the hell of death, dishonor and crime, that it demor¬ 
alizes everybody that touches it, from its source to 
where it ends. I do not believe anybody can contem¬ 
plate the subject without becoming prejudiced against 
the liquor crime. 

“ All we have to do, gentlemen, is to, think of 
the wrecks on either bank of the stream of deah; of 
the suicides, of the insanity; of the poverty, of the 
ignorance; of the destitution ; of the little children 
tugging at the faded and weary breasts of weeping 
and despairing wives, asking for bread ; of the tal¬ 
ented men of genius that it has wrecked, the men 
struggling with imaginary serpents, produced by this 
devilish thing; and when you think of the jails, of the 
almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, of the scaf¬ 
folds upon either bank, I do not wonder that every 
thoughtful man is prejudiced against this damned stuff 
that is called alcohol. 

“ Intemperance cuts down youth in its vigor, 
manhood in its strength, and age in its weakness. It 
breaks the father’s heart, bereaves the doting mother, 
extinguishes natural affections, erases conjugal loves, 






64 


THE SIX THUNDERS. 


blots out filial attachments, blights parental hope, and 
brings down mourning age in sorrow to the grave. It 
produces weakness, not strength ; sickness, not health; 
death, not life. It makes wives widows; children or¬ 
phans; fathers fiends, and all of them paupers and 
beggars. It feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes 
epidemics, invites cholera, imports pestilence and em¬ 
braces consumption. 

“It covers the land with idleness, misery and 
crime. It fills your jails, supplies your almshouses and 
demands your asylums. It engenders controversies, 
fosters quarrels and cherishes riots. It crowds your 
penitentiaries and furnishes victims to your scaffolds. 
It is the life-blood of the gambler, the element of the 
burglar, the prop of the highwayman and the support 
of the midnight incendiary. 

“ It countenances the liar, respects the thief, es¬ 
teems the blasphemer. It violates obligations, rever¬ 
ences fraud, and honors infamy. It defames benevo¬ 
lence, hates love, scorns virtue and slanders innocence. 
It incites the father to butcher his helpless offspring, 
helps the husband to massacre his wife, and the child 
to grind the parricidal axe. It burns up men, con¬ 
sumes women, detests life, curses God, and despises 
heaven. It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles 
the jury box and stains the judicial ermine. 

“ It degrades the citizen, debases the legislator, 
dishonors statesmen, and disarms the patriot. It 
brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety ; despair, 
not hope ; misery, not happiness ; and with the malevo¬ 
lence of a fiend, it calmly surveys its frightful desola¬ 
tion, and, unsatisfied with its havoc, it poisons felicity, 
kills peace, ruins morals, blights confidence, slays 
reputation, and wipes out national honors, then curses 
the world and laughs at its ruin. It does all that and 
more—it murders the soul. It is the son of villainies, 




THE SIX THUNDERS. 


65 


the father of all crimes, the mother of abominations, 
the devil’s best friend and God’s worst enemy.” 

I repeat, sir, you and Doctor Potter should pray 
together for new light on this question. Ingersoll never 
put such a clog on the wheels of civilization as you 
put on when you fastened a new handle into the rum- 
sellers axe by declaring that “ moderate drinking does 
not lead to drunkenness.” Mrs. Foster, of Boston, 
well said that you were “ guilty of treason to woman’s 
kingdom—THE HOME.” 

Calling your attention to the text, “ If meat cause 
thy brother to offend,” etc., and advising you to brush 
the cob-webs from your brain. I am, Chancellor, 

Yours , in Love , Purity , and Fidelity , 

JUNTA, THE OHIO WOMAN. 







THE END IS NOT YET. 
















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